This Is a War
by analine
Summary: The summer is over, and Sam is at war with an imaginary corpse, among other things. Sam/Dean. Set early in S4.


**Title:** This Is a War  
**Pairing:** Sam/Dean  
**Warnings**: some language, mentions of sex  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** ~2,100

**Notes**: Set early in S4 (before Dean finds out what's really going on with Ruby, and before Sam finds out that Dean remembers Hell). This turned out a little dark, though there's a mostly happy, hopeful ending. ;)

* * *

Sam still feels it sometimes, a bright, throbbing thing inside of him that starts small, or starts big; it really doesn't matter, because the end is always the same.

It's familiar, and horrible, and it creeps its way into Sam's mind and makes him see things and feel things that have no business being anywhere near here now that Dean's back. They belong buried somewhere under the hot, summer sky, deep underneath six feet of mud and rocks and worms. Not here. Not caught up in this space between them, or burrowed deep underneath Sam's skin like some kind of parasite.

The summer is over, after all, and Dean doesn't remember a damn thing, or at least he says he doesn't, and either way, it's probably just as well they don't talk about it yet.

And Sam is fine with that except for the fact that it feels like a lie, even though it isn't, not really, not at first.

Sam tells him some things, of course, but not everything, not even close.

He doesn't tell Dean how his body had looked, torn up and bloody, then grey and blank and cold, doesn't tell him how heavy its weight had been in his arms.

He doesn't tell him just how hard he'd tried to change things, as the hours and days and weeks stretched on, and Dean's corpse rotted in a field in that stupid town in Illinois.

He doesn't tell him how unbelievable, how completely otherworldly it had felt, when no matter what Sam did, Dean just stayed dead.

Later, he'd find that there was a weird sort of peace in giving up on something so enormous, like all the sudden the world was a much smaller, more contracted place. Without Dean, Sam would figure out how to fight again; he would concentrate on finding Lilith, on revenge. He would become stronger. There was a war on after all.

And then Dean had woken up.

Sam reminds himself of this simple fact roughly a hundred times a day. Dean has just woken up; for Dean, the summer didn't exist.

Dean doesn't remember Pontiac, Illinois, not like Sam does. He remembers something much worse, maybe, but he doesn't remember this.

And he doesn't understand this war that they're fighting, not really.

* * *

Dean's fingers are buried in Sam's hair.

Dean's arm is wrapped around his back, strong and tight, tugging him close in the darkness. Under the covers, Dean's body is like a furnace; it warms the blood in Sam's veins.

Dean wants to know what he's thinking, what it was like while he was gone, and Sam has no idea what to tell him. Everything he can think of sounds ridiculous, clichéd, and not enough.

"It was…" Sam starts, but it turns out he can't finish that thought, the words just die, right there on his lips.

The air flattens out, and thins, and Sam closes his eyes.

He can't tell Dean that now that they're wrapped up around each other like this he can't help but picture Dean's flesh rotting away in that box underground, and that no matter how much he squeezes his eyes shut tight the image won't go away.

He can't tell him how alive Ruby had felt that first time in his arms; how alive he'd felt, feels, when he was inside of her.

He can't tell Dean that sometimes he feels like there's a hole inside of him, something huge that's missing, and that sometimes he wonders if that something is the part of him that had died that day, too, right alongside Dean, only it hasn't quite made its way back yet.

Sam can't say any of these things.

Instead, he says, "It was the worst, Dean," and buries his head against Dean's neck and breathes him in and lets Dean fill in the rest.

"Man, I missed you," Dean says, his voice quiet and vulnerable.

Dean has never said anything like this to him, not even after four years at Stanford, not ever. It makes Sam suck in a deep breath, makes his chest throb, makes him press his lips to Dean's for a long, long time, until he can't feel anything else anymore.

Dean is not a corpse, Sam thinks.

Dean is not a zombie.

Dean is right here, and he's _alive_, his heart is pounding, feel it, _feel_ it.

* * *

Dean's lips had been laced with the dull chalk of grave dirt that first night, and Sam can still taste it on his tongue, even now. Sometimes it's bitter, other times it's sharp and tangy - coppery, like blood.

Or maybe Sam had been imagining that.

There's a lot going on in his head these days, after all. His mind feels like a vacuum, all kinds of things just getting sucked in and hanging out there, not leaving, infinite space. Things he wants to forget, but can't, and things that he wants more than anything to remember, but that seem a million miles away now.

And then Dean says, "Sammy", and Sam's heart aches and aches and then he says it again, and presses his lips all over Sam's body, and it's just a stupid nickname, one that Sam had never even really liked all that much, but he still thinks it's the most beautiful thing ever, and that Dean's voice is the most beautiful sound in the entire world.

It makes everything feel real and pure and simple again, and Sam wishes it could last forever.

* * *

Dean is angry, eventually, and Sam understands, he really does.

Dean's words are mean and cold and scared, but sometimes in Dean's eyes, Sam swears he sees things, swears that Dean speaks to him, that his eyes say, _I know what you've been doing_, and _I know what you're thinking_, and _I understand_, and _I forgive you_.

Sometimes Sam thinks he might be imagining that too, but he's not sure that he cares.

Other times Sam knows that he's not imagining it, because he believes that Dean always understands everything, that he's kind of magic like that.

Sometimes Sam thinks Dean is a kind of magic that's wrapped around his heart and his soul and that he isn't ever going to let go. And Sam doesn't want him to, won't ever let him lose his grip again.

Dean will try, maybe, but this time Sam will hold on tighter.

* * *

Sam thinks two truths and a lie, or two lies and a truth.

He thinks: Dean does not think Sam is a monster.

He thinks: Sam is not in love with Ruby.

He thinks: This is not addiction.

And the pain that throbs in his chest, and between his eyes still tells him that Dean is gone, that Sam is alone, and that all of this is Sam's fault, and Sam still believes it, sometimes.

It tells him that he can _atone_.

That this is revenge.

It tells him that Sam is in control, and that there's a war and that he's going to win.

_Yes_, Sam thinks, this is a war.

This is a war, and Dean has a mission from God.

This is a war, and Sam has Ruby, and Dean has a mission from God and a nickname for an angel, and Sam is not jealous.

Sam is a soldier and Ruby is a weapon and Dean is a kind of magic and this is a war and they're going to _win_.

There's a quote about war, about the things it allows you to do that's rattling around in Sam's head somewhere that he can't quite access, but the sentiment is there all the same.

He will hold on tighter. He will learn from his mistakes. He will make the right decisions, and he will win.

Sam thinks it doesn't matter if there are two truths and a lie or two lies and a truth or all lies because this this is a war, and they have to win, and that has to be the most important thing.

Most of the time, it's not though. Most of the time Dean is the most important thing and Sam tells himself it's all same anyway. If they don't win this war, Dean dies, they all die, but there's a subtle difference there and he knows it.

* * *

"I understand what you're doing," Dean tells him, and Sam thinks he sounds like he means it, despite the fact that his voice mostly just sounds like _sex_, wrung out, and sated, but serious, like this is important.

Dean always does this, this out-of-the-blue, post-coital confession thing. It drives Sam insane.

"With Ruby," Dean says. "I understand."

"No, you don't," Sam tells him, and he means it too.

Dean's back arches a little, tugs up tight against Sam's ribs. They're coiled around each other, skin against skin, and there's a damp patch of sweat cooling between them.

Like this, Sam doesn't have to see Dean's face.

"I couldn't last an hour when it was you lying there," Dean says, half into the pillow. His voice sounds tired, broken.

"And I would have done anything to stop feeling like that," Dean says. "_Anything_. So, I understand."

Sam just breathes, in and out against the warm, damp hairs at the base of Dean's neck. He closes his eyes and presses his lips against the salt of Dean's skin, and listens as Dean hums into the pillow.

"You said you missed me," Sam says eventually. He doesn't really mean it to be a question, but he guesses it sort of is. "You've never said that before."

"Yeah, well… I don't know why not." Dean rolls over till he's facing Sam, nose to nose. "Sometimes I feel like all I do is miss you," Dean says. "Hell, I miss you right now."

"Dean—"

"Don't. Don't say you're right here, because you're not. Not really," Dean says, and it's like the air has been sucked right out of the room, right out of Sam's lungs.

And then Dean's voice softens a little.

"But it's okay. It's just gonna take some time. I was gone for a long time. I get that it's weird, believe me."

Sam laughs a little at that. He takes a deep breath and tries to ignore his heart knocking up against his ribs.

"Weird doesn't even begin to cover it."

"So, tell me about it. Talk to me."

Sam stares at his brother for a long moment and then decides, fuck it.

"Well… I, uh… I see your corpse. Sometimes."

Dean, surprisingly, laughs. "Dude, I am not haunting you. I wouldn't even do that if I was dead. Again, I mean."

Suddenly Sam's head feels a little warm. His skin prickles and his heart starts up again, pounding so hard he can feel it in his throat.

"I _prayed_ for you to haunt me, you know. I knew it didn't make any sense, but I just… I wanted to see you. You didn't though. You were just gone. You weren't anywhere."

"You mean ghost me wasn't anywhere."

"Well, yeah," Sam says, voice feeling a little shaky. The whole room feels a little shaky, really. "Ghost you, and _you_ you. Guess you were both too busy to pay me a visit."

The room is quiet, and Sam stares at Dean, and Dean stares back at him.

"That's kinda messed up, Sammy," he says after another minute. "The corpse thing, I mean. And the ghost thing."

Then Dean makes a face and Sam smiles a little.

"It was a really long summer, Dean."

"I know," Dean says, and then tugs at Sam's elbow. "C 'mere."

"Dean," Sam says, and Dean just shushes him, and pulls him close, and for a long, long moment, Sam feels like maybe things are going to be okay.

"I'm sorry," Sam says, and Dean just tugs him closer, right up against his chest, where his heart is pounding, and Sam knows it means everything, and nothing at all, but he says it again anyway, meaning it, hoping for a little bit of magic, maybe.

"We're going to be okay," Dean says, warm breath into his hair. "And just in case we're not, I promise to haunt you next time, okay?"

"You better," Sam says, and laughs, and then Dean's laughing too.

"I would make a pretty badass ghost, you have to admit."

"Yeah," Sam says, and then he presses his lips to Dean's, and doesn't think about war or Hell or Ruby or anything at all for a while.

**end**


End file.
